Administration, and the survey is still
not energetically pushed and the final
facts have not been tabulated.

Q:

This is something which your foundation is quite
cognizant of.

Lasker:

Yes, because we're always trying to collect
up-dated facts. If there are no surveys
made, we don't get any new facts and
nobody knows on what scale action is
necessary.

All these bills which passed the Senate failed to
pass in the House, and I asked Senator
Murray to reintroduce the Survey of
Sickness bill in '51, but the AMA,
believe it or not, raised some stupid
objections, and with Senator Ives and
Pepper no longer in the Senate, we had
no one to drive it through. Murray, by
this time, didn't have the energy to
argue about it.

Q:

What kind of objections were raised?

Lasker:

Oh, I can't even remember, something incredibly
stupid.

However, let's go back to 1949. All four of the
bills passed, including the omnibus
research bill containing these two new
institutes, the Senate sometime in
August or early September. They passed
unanimously on the consent calendar and
this made me anxious to push Biemiller,
who was taking the leadership in the
House on medical legislation at this
time. I saw him in Paris at lunch with
Albert at the Ritz and I talked to him
about the whole group of bills the
Senate had passed. He, at that time,